Ardennes 1944

Author Antony Beevor
Narrator Sean Barrett
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 21 May 2015
Run Time 14 hours and 40 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Battles and campaigns, European history, Modern warfare, Second World War.

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What to expect

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Ardennes 1994 by Antony Beever, read by Sean Barrett.

On 16 December 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes on the Belgian/German border. Although Hitler's generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe.

In January 1945, when the Red Army launched its onslaught towards Berlin, the once-feared German war machine was revealed to be broken beyond repair. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the Wehrmacht.

Critics Review

This is World War II as Tolstoy would have described it - the great and the small

Washington Post (on 'The Second World War')

Rightly deserves its place on the shelves of any serious historian of the Second World War. Powerful and authoritative . . . Beevor weaves a masterful narrative based on the viewpoints of a vast range of people. Marshalling a coherent narrative out of an unwieldy sequence of localised attacks, counterattacks, deceptions, and feints demands the attention of a master military historian. In Antony Beevor, the Ardennes offensive has found one

Military History Monthly (Book of the Month)

What leaves a lasting impression is the huge power the American army as a whole mustered to smash back the Germans. A superpower was being born

Bookseller, Interview with Antony Beevor

If you're a fan of Beevor's work, find some space on your bookshelf for this one. If you've never read him before, start here and work your way back - it's history nerd heaven!

History of War Magazine

Unflinching. As Ardennes 1944 makes clear, Hitler misjudged the strength and resilience of the US army. It was his last gamble and it failed

Prospect

What stands out most . . . is the effects of violent warfare. By the end of the counteroffensive the snowfields were littered with frozen corpses and the wreckage of hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles

Literary Review

A superb addition to the canon which has taken us from Stalingrad to Normandy in 1944 and the final gruesome battle for Berlin, not forgetting the masterly single-volume history of the entire war. It is written with all of Beevor's customary verve and elegance. His remarkable and trademark ability is to encompass the wide sweep of campaigns yet never forget the piquant details of what happened to the individual . . . He focuses brilliantly on the key moments that turned the battle

Evening Standard

As impeccably researched, insightfully observed and superbly written as its bestselling predecessors

Sunday Express

Rich in detail and drama. Enthralling

Mail on Sunday

If there's one thing that sets Beevor apart from other historians - beyond his gifts as a storyteller - it's that he is not afraid to look at the most uncomfortable, even frightening subjects, but does so in a way that doesn't threaten the reader. It's like having Virgil there to lead you through the underworld: he doesn't leave you stranded amid the horror but leads you back again, a wiser person for having undergone the journey

Daily Telegraph

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